


the breath of terra

by colloquialrhapsodist



Category: Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy IX
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-08
Updated: 2015-03-08
Packaged: 2018-03-17 00:03:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3507626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colloquialrhapsodist/pseuds/colloquialrhapsodist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>– his hand warms hers. for all her lessons on the biology of a genome, she cannot say why. at kuja's deathbed, mikoto pov.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the breath of terra

“I gotta go.”

Zidane stands at the door. Tense, taut. She can see the way his tail curls behind him. A question mark, a telltale sign of anxiety. Mikoto knows this, because Garland told her so, when she first drew breath, and the blue light pricked her eyes. She knows this, because she felt hard and choked and strange, and he said,  _You are anxious, my child. But soon, all will be well._

He never said what it was she was anxious about, or what it meant to be anxious.  She associates the feeling with Bran Bal, staring into the blue light hard enough that her eyes feel raw. This is pain, she reasons. Pain is Bran Bal. If all  _will_ be well, then all is not currently well. Therefore, pain is unwell. Pain is anxiety. Pain is necessary.

But this is not Bran Bal, though enough of her kin wander the grass and dirt and trees. This is not Terra, even as the ghosts of the Angel of Death’s amateur puppetry weave and wend and amble about. There is something warm about them, with their big clumsy gloves and steeped hats. Something warm about this place. She figures it is the sun, beaming down on the ramshackle wooden houses thatched with straw. Bran Bal was neither cold nor warm; it simply was. It was the neutrality of existence.

Pain is neutral, pain is vital, pain is normal. There is less pain here. Perhaps the warmth she feels is the lack of pain.

She stares at Zidane.

There is a cough from the bed. The two of them look over to the man in the bed, his face wan, his silver hair strewn over the pillow. His lips, curved and pointed, look limp and fragile.

“Leaving so soon… brother?”

“Ha.” Zidane laughs. There is something wrong about it, but she does not know the right way to laugh, as it stands. “Here I was thinkin’ I could slip out before you got a word in. You do like your, uh. Over the top goodbyes.”

“And I so despise repetition.” He sighs, sitting up, just a little. A clump of his hair falls out, spinning to the ground in slow motion, like the leaves that fall from the dense green forest surrounding the Black Mage Village. She watches it. Kuja is not well. All will not be well, for him. He will die in pain, in the state of neutrality.

_He will die._  There is nothing surprising about that fact. There is nothing surprising about fact, in general. But this is why Zidane is tight and drawn, why Kuja is weak and scornful and looks more like Terra by the second, pale and tinged with blue, a swatch of worn white against the vibrant canvas of Gaia.  _He will die._

She says the words over and over again, in her head. If he is going to die, and his death is certain, why did they not leave him in the depths of the great Tree? Would it not be fitting for him to die in the graveyard of Terran souls?

Zidane said no. Zidane said Kuja wasn’t part of Terra anymore. He wasn’t part of anything anymore, not anything, except their little family. He should die surrounded by his family.

She does not understand, but it makes her feel warm. A deep, low warm, that still makes her eyes feel a little raw.

“Leave me be, little brother,” Kuja sighs. “Go on. Skitter out of here, you deplorable little monkey.”

Zidane cracks a grin. It’s still wrong. “That’s more like it. Mikoto will take care of you, all right? Right, sis?”

She stirs at her name, and nods. She thinks for a moment,  _Perhaps I do not look like I’m paying attention._  She says, “Yes. I will.”

“Yeah, I knew I could count on you.”

“But he will still die,” she says. “No matter what I do to care for him.”

There is a silence.

It is a long silence, one that is dark and deep and filled with all the certainties of Terra. For a moment, the blue light seems centered in the little room, faintly glowing at the center, silhouetting Zidane’s cheekbones and softly narrowed eyes, spilling over Kuja’s face and the shallow rise and fall of his chest beneath the rough hand-sewn sheets. It is ironic to feel that blue light here, she thinks, because that is  _Gaia’s_  crystal, and every Genome was trained to be solid beneath its pulses – but the practice, the practice is so Terran, to bathe in the light and let it wash you raw with pain. There is a little bit of Terra in all of them, from the blatant to the simple, from their tails to the way none of them could quite meet each other’s eyes, from their sandy hair to their deft hands. And there is a little bit of Terra in the silence, filling up their lungs with the shared burden and the shared fate, the fates of thousands of souls – be it in conquering or murder – carried on their backs, as Garland had dreamed, as the ancient ways foretold. And Terra is on their breaths, and when she folds her hands, Zidane turns out to face the rest of the village, while Kuja closes his eyes.

“We all do,” says the eldest, fluttering his eyelashes, and even Zidane turns in surprise to look at him once more, and the blue light seems to fade. “Eventually.”

It is warm again, but even in the warmth, there is that hint of pain. Terran pain is necessary. But this warm pain. She has no words for it.

“Yeah.” Zidane scuffs his foot on the ground. “Listen, Mikoto – I gotta go, I really do. Dagger’s waiting for me. Don’t leave him alone, okay? I’ll come visit soon – ”

And then he’s gone.

“Coward,” Kuja muses.

“I do not think so,” Mikoto says. “We are all afraid, aren’t we? Does that make us cowards?”

“He doesn’t wish to see me die,” Kuja says. “Not even bothering to stay for the finale. Ill-mannered little beast.”

“He already saw you die once,” she says. “I helped him pull you out of the Iifa Tree. He was crying,” she adds, in some surprise. “That is… pain. Perhaps he does not wish to feel it again.”

“He’s moving forward, you mean.” Kuja sighs, sinking into the pillow. “He said his goodbyes and bid me  _adieu._  He is doing what I cannot. He has accepted death, so he’s going to live until he can’t anymore. That’s all.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that, so she says nothing at all, her hands still folded in her lap.

“He has even… accepted me,” Kuja mumbles, some time later. She hears him, but does not respond; the statement does not seem to warrant a response, and besides, his face is contracted in pain. Pain is necessary, but her stomach clenches up with that anxiety. She is afraid, but of what? What is there to fear when she knows what’s to come?

“Mikoto.” He holds out his pale fingers. “Come.”

She does as much, not out of obedience, but because she was probably going to move close to him anyway. She lifts her little stool and sets it back down on the rickety wooden panels.

He reaches out and takes her hand, squeezing it, his fingers paper thin and brittle but strong in this last little gasp. She thought his skin might be cool, and distant, but it is warm and solid. He looks up at her, and his eyes are burning, flickering in and out of passion.

His breath may be Terran, but his eyes are Gaian, she thinks. He is both. He is neither. He is pain and in pain. He is necessary and unnecessary. He was made to serve and served none but himself. He was created. He created himself.

“ _Mikoto_ ,” he breathes. “The last one. The last one of us. Had I stayed, would I have orphaned you, as I did Zidane? Or would I be so brainwashed that you would have been left alone?”

His hand warms hers. For all her knowledge, for all Garland’s lessons, for all her understanding on the biology of a Genome, she cannot say why.

“You will not be forgotten, Kuja,” she says, and she doesn’t know why she says it, but she does, because there is a sharp burning in her chest that is indescribable, working its way up to her eyes and filling them with heat.

“That’s fine,” he says, after a moment, closing his eyes. “That’s fine.”


End file.
